August 5, 2005

Out a Covert CIA Agent: Keep Your JobCurse On Air: Get Suspended

Robert Novak has finally been suspended from CNN. No, not for outing undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame, but for saying "bullshit" live on air on Inside Politics and walking off the set.

Talking Points Memopoints out that Novak may have been freaking out because James Carville had brought a copy of Who's Who in America on the set. Novak suggested in his column on August 1st that anyone could have figured out Wilson's wife's name by looking Wilson up in Who's Who. Anne Kornblut asks why Novak used the name "Plame" instead of "Wilson" in a New York Timesarticle on August 2nd in which Who's Who is also mentioned.

Did Novak freak out because of the presence of this book? Certainly there was no reason for the melt down in the context of what was being said right before Novak blew it -- this program always features shouting.

The host of Inside Politics stated that Novak knew that the Plame case would be discussed on the program.